MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Rato to step down as IMF chief

Rato, will step down in the fall for personal reasons, he announced

International Monetary Fund managing director Rodrigo de Rato will step down in October, he said Thursday, some six weeks after upheaval at the helm of the sister institution, the World Bank.

"My family circumstances and responsibilities, particularly with regard to the education of my children, are the reason for relinquishing earlier than expected my responsibilities at the Fund," he said in a statement to the board of the 185-nation lending institution. Rato, 58, a former Spanish Economy minister, told the executive board of the 185-nation lending organization he would leave in October after the IMF's annual meeting. He was due to end his five-year term in May 2009. He succeeded Horst Koehler, now Germany's president, in May 2004. The IMF and its sister institution and downtown Washington neighbor, the World Bank, were founded at the end of World War II to promote global economic stability. The IMF came to the rescue of economies in Asia and Latin America in the late 1990s when they faced financial crises but in recent years its lending role has been reduced. In a tradition that dates to the founding of the two organizations, a European is the managing director of the IMF and an American is president of the World Bank